Contents

Issue

Poorly regulated consumer credit firms, including lenders and debt collectors, can cause or increase detriment for a wide range of consumers. Individuals with debt problems can be particularly vulnerable to unfair practices by credit or debt firms.

The government wants to ensure the consumer credit market is well functioning, sustainable, and able to meet consumers’ needs. We want regulation for the consumer credit market to impose proportionate burdens on firms. And we want to ensure consumers to be protected, and to have confidence that if something does go wrong the regulator will step in swiftly and decisively to put it right.

Background

In June 2011, the National Audit Office released a report that concluded that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) was not meeting the needs of the consumer. The report estimated that there was up to £450 million of unaddressed consumer detriment per year under the OFT regime.